Year 4 Summer Term 2

English – Pugs of the Frozen North

When True Winter comes, once in a lifetime, teams on sledges pulled by animals take part in the Great Northern Race across the snow, of which there are fifty kinds, to the Snowfather’s palace at the top of the world. Cabin boy Shen, cast adrift from his ship with 66 pug dogs, meets Sika who is desperate to take part in the race. They join forces and exhilarating adventures ensue involving the Kraken, yetis and trolls, not to mention the other participants in the race.

Throughout the unit, the children will:

• explore, interpret, and respond to illustrations in a book
• enjoy a story and discuss its meanings
• build an imaginative picture of a fantasy world, based on real life experiences
• explore ideas through role-play and writing in role
• write their own stories based on the story from another character’s point of view

Maths

The children will start the term by learning about time, including both analogue and digital clocks. Next they will explore a variety of charts and tables, looking at different ways of interpreting information. Finally, the children will look at shape, investigating properties including angles and lines of symmetry.

Science – Dangers to living things

In this unit, children investigate the effect of a small change to an environment by placing carpet or other covering on the ground, and will consider the impact of larger changes to the environment such as fire and flood. They will consider how humans can reduce the impact of some environmental changes.

History – Invasion

This term, the children will continue to find out who invaded Britain after the Romans. They will find out about the Viking invaders. The children will compare the everyday lives of the two invading forces – the Anglo Saxons and Vikings - and find similarities and differences between them. At the end of the unit, we will learn about the Norman invasion.

We are looking forward to our trip to Chester House where will experience being archaeological explorers: searching for clues in the landscape, archaeological investigators: discovery and recording and archaeological investigators: stories from objects. The excavations involve uncovering a Roman cemetery which will allow the children the opportunity to view human skeletal material.

Design Technology – Hillfort Builders

In this unit, the children will explore the advantages of six simple machines: pulley, lever, wheel and axel, wedge, inclined plane, and screw. They will make simple prototype machines for the purpose of moving ‘building materials’ to the top of the hill to build a hill fort. These will be tested to see which is most effective.

Music – Recorders

This term, the children will continue learning how to play a musical instrument - the recorder.  As we learn to play more notes, we will start to understand staff notation and begin to recognise these new notes on the stave. The children will continue to describe music using the elements of music - pitch, tempo and dynamics. 

French

In French, the children will be learning about French food. We will explore ordering and menus -‘Yum Yum’- or ‘Miam, Miam’ in a French café.  This unit introduces food vocabulary and revises numbers to 100, this time in the context of money and prices. The unit encourages children to develop their language detective skills and confidence with practical conversational French.

PE

This term, the children will be learning about Athletics during their P.E. lessons. They will develop their running, jumping and throwing techniques across a variety of track and field events over the term. They will also learn how tactics are used within athletic events.

In their second P.E. lesson, the children will be taking part in learning about Tennis. They will learn how to serve and to use a forehand and backhand shot. The children will be developing their ability to adjust their technique after a shot to improve.

PSHE – Jigsaw – Changing Me

‘Changing me’ will look at a range of ways we change and develop as we grow-up, including looking at how to cope with unexpected changes that may happen.

R.E. – Buddhism

This term, the children will continue to find out about one of the world’s main religions, Buddhism. They will be looking in more detail at the founder of the religion, and examining some of the key beliefs that Buddhists share.